(Bad) Girls on Film

Remember the movies Thirteen, Heathers, Sugar & Spice, Wild Things and Pretty Persuasion? What is the one thing they have in common? Yes. Girls behaving badly.

These movies generally have a coming of age theme to it with undertones of teenage rebellion (or is it the other way around?) The setting's always during high school or college and the characters want to do something different with their lives and actually did extraordinary measures to achieve it but yes, most intentions were not really good.

These movies might always send the wrong message but what the hell, it's my guilty pleasure. And I do believe every generation has an iconic bad girls movie.

Here's a list of movies (upcoming or recently released) with girls making some very poor decisions at some point in their lives:

1. Spring Breakers (2012)

This movie reminded me of Sugar & Spice (sans being cheerleaders). Four best friends (who seems to be always scantily clad in bright colored little pieces of clothing) want to have the ultimate spring break adventure of their lives. One problem: where are they going to get the money?

I was laughing out loud at how ridiculous James Franco looked at this film (cornrows and gold grillz) and even more at how he is ridiculously named as "Alien" in the movie. Hahaha. Seriously? But then again there's Vanessa Hudgens and Selena Gomez (in swimsuits), and yeah, Harmony Korine.

2. Electrick Children (2012)

Witness meets Almost Famous by way of early Gus Van Sant in this gleefully odd, dazzling coming-of-age tale. The film follows young Mormon virgin Rachel (Julia Garner), who awakens one day to find herself inexplicably pregnant after secretly listening to a forbidden tape of The Nerves' classic hit Hanging on the Telephone. Facing shame in her community and a forced marriage, Rachel flees and, accompanied by her stern cousin Mr. Will (Liam Aiken), hits the road in search of the singer on the tape - the man she is convinced has made her pregnant through music. Lost in Las Vegas, the oddball pair fall in with a bunch of slacker skater punk-rockers led by dreamy lost boy Clyde (Rory Culkin), and are thrown into a very different new world full of music, romance and possibility. (from Youtube.com/Picturehouse)

3. Yelling to the Sky (2011)

In this gripping urban drama, rising star Zoë Kravitz plays 17-year old Sweetness O’Hara, the daughter of an African American mother and a white father, who is struggling to find her place in a rough inner city neighborhood. Her father is either absent or abusive; her mixed race background makes her an outsider; and drugs and violence abound. Sweetness finds herself in a downward spiral of drug dealing, shoplifting and fights with a bully (played by Gabourey Sidibe, Precious) before a series of events leads her to rethink her life and to explore her options for a fresh start... (from Trailers.apple.com)

4. The Bling Ring (2013)

The movie is based on the real-life string of robberies that began in 2008, and continued for a year and a half before anyone was caught. The "Bling Ring" was a group of teenagers that ransacked celebrity homes, including Paris Hilton's, Lindsay Lohan's, and Orlando Bloom's, among others.

Emma Watson plays one of the teenagers who used the Internet to figure out when stars would be away, leaving their homes open for a shopping spree. The teaser shows flashes of Watson's character and her five friends trying on clothes in celebrity closets, partying in clubs, and flaunting their newly acquired bling on the streets of L.A. Sounds juicy, right? It gets even juicier when they get caught. (from News.moviefone.com)

What is up with robber chicks? A29 released this movie this year after Spring Breakers. Reasons to watch: film was directed by Sofia Coppola among other things. Other noteworthy reason: Emma Watson not only being long gone from Hogwarts and her character from Perks of Being a Wallflower but also being a bad girl leader of a group of rich-people-stealing teenagers.